


Narcissus of the Lethe

by thegreatpumpkin



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: F/F, imaginary friend shipping?, selfcest?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 04:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4376864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatpumpkin/pseuds/thegreatpumpkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whenever she spied her own reflection in the pools or meres or the dangerous black river that wound through the forest, she pretended not to see how it moved only when she did. Instead she called the girl in the water a friend; as she was Tauriel, forest-daughter, her friend was Síriel, river-daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Narcissus of the Lethe

**Author's Note:**

> I asked for prompts for Tolkien Femslash week. I'm kind of on the fence about whether this one really counts for femslash week, but the prompt was:  
>  **Could you write a femslash fic that pairs Tauriel with herself? Like through magic she's able to be with another Tauriel? She's so kickass but there are no other characters to pair her with!**

Mirkwood was, in the days after its darkening, a strange and lonely place for an orphan to grow up–especially for a misfit of her caliber. She was the king’s ward but not the king’s child; it put her in the precarious position of being too high up for any common folk to be at ease around her, too lowborn for the lords and ladies to befriend, and no true part of the royal family that sheltered her.

The king’s son was sweet to her, and she often wished he were her real brother. But he was grown, with the concerns of an adult, and did not often have time to skip stones or climb trees with her.

Instead, she made herself a friend. Whenever she spied her own reflection in the pools or meres or the dangerous black river that wound through the forest, she pretended not to see how it moved only when she did. Instead she called the girl in the water a friend; as she was Tauriel, forest-daughter, her friend was Síriel, river-daughter. With looks like her own, but darker-skinned, darker-haired, fleeter and taller in the stretched-out reflection, Síriel possessed all of the beauty Tauriel felt lacking in herself.

They ran together, along slow-moving rivers or streams; swam together in the few pools where it was safe. Sometimes they sat dreaming on the banks, both silent, only the tips of their toes touching. Or else Tauriel would skip stones, warning Síriel to duck just before they hit the water; then they would laugh and laugh, and stretch out on their stomachs to press their palms together.

She knew it wasn’t real. She knew Síriel was nothing more than her own distorted reflection. But sometimes, for an afternoon, she could forget that she knew it; and when she poured out her secrets to Síriel’s sympathetic ears, it felt like someone was holding them safe for her.

~~~

After the battles were all over, Tauriel wandered.

She was still banished, probably, but feet left to stroll without a mind commanding their direction tend to find familiar paths. No one stopped her; when she came to herself she was sitting on the bank of the black river, a broad leaf shredded down to its veins between her hands. It was tempting to trail her fingers in the water–a deep, forgetting sleep seemed appealing just at the moment–but before she made contact with the surface, the water calmed and something came into focus.

A familiar face peered up at her, as if waiting for her to notice; with a start, she recalled her childhood fancy, and smiled though her face felt stiff and numb. Síriel smiled back, but there were salt tracks down her dusky cheeks.

“You’ve loved someone too,” Tauriel said, her voice hoarse. She was too weary, too in need of comfort to feel self-conscious about talking to no one.

“Can’t you guess?” she imagined Síriel saying, though her mouth did not move as she gazed up mournfully from her own shady bank.

Some things were still too raw for Tauriel, even inside her own mind; her imagination balked at the notion of mirrored Dwarves, and thankfully spared her the spectre of her own lost one. Besides, she had never imagined any of the other people that populated her own world reflected in Síriel’s. When they were together, there had been no one else in either world but the two of them.

“ _Oh_ ,” she said softly, beginning to understand.

“Oh,” Síriel agreed.

“My oldest friend–” said Tauriel, but Síriel’s lips said instead, _my only friend._

It may have been a little mad, but she could very nearly hear the sound of Síriel’s voice; hushed and rounded like the sound of water rushing over rocks, with the same slight Silvan accent Tauriel herself had had as a child. When they were young she’d imagined a babbling brook, but now it was the lower register of waist-high waterfalls.

It was bitter, and fitting. Her physical needs, food and shelter and so forth, had always been provided by the king. But who had she ever had to turn to for the emotional ones besides her own self?

“Síriel,” she said softly, and it was an apology. For forgetting, for leaving that truth of her childhood behind.

“Tauriel,” her reflection said back, and it was a kind of forgiveness.

In that moment she craved some touch, some token of love, even if it were false. Before she knew what she did, Tauriel bent low over the water and pressed her mouth to Síriel’s. It was a sweet fiction; she parted her lips to the black water as she would to a lover, closed her eyes to meet the river’s kiss. She felt herself slipping from the bank into Síriel’s arms, and was not sorry.

And then hands were pushing her up and back. She tumbled backwards onto mud and moss, and when she opened her eyes she was on the bank again, though her clothing was soaked. She sat up swiftly, looking around for her rescuer, but there was no one.

No one but Síriel, barely visible now in the dimming light, her image slowly resolving as the water’s surface calmed again.

They gazed at one another for a long moment, unmoving. Then, slowly, Tauriel ventured– “I understand.”

“Understand?”

She smiled, tentative. “What you mean.” If all she had was herself, then she must be tender.

Síriel smiled too, and her voice was full of warmth. “What _you_ mean.” _To me_ , she didn’t have to add, or– _to yourself_. And weren’t they the same thing, after all?

Tauriel took one of her knives from its sheath. A lock of hair was a lover’s token, was it not? She gathered hers into a tail at the nape of her neck, then sliced it free; when she cast it into the water, Síriel’s hand was outstretched to catch it.

Then she stood, and turned, and walked into the world. Wherever she might go, however far from this wood, there was one love that could not be taken from her.


End file.
